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Tempura Shrimp

A light air batter resulting in a soft batter coating on either shrimp or pork. Serve as an appetizer with some dipping sauce or as a dough coated element in a stir fried dish. I use the same batter for pork pieces when making sweet and sour pork.

Ingredients

All purpose flour

1⁄2 Cup (8 tbs)

Oil

2 Cup (32 tbs) (For deep frying)

Corn starch

1⁄4 Cup (4 tbs)

Baking powder

2 Teaspoon

Salt

1 Pinch

Sugar

1 Teaspoon

Egg

1

Water

1⁄2 Cup (8 tbs)

Directions

Combine the flour, corn starch baking powder,sugar and salt in a 2 quart bowl and mix to combine. In a separate small bowl, vigorously beat the egg for at least 30 seconds. Add it to the dry mix along with most of the water. Stir to incorporate all the ingredients. Add more water if necessary until you get the mixture to break into a liquid state, barely. Not too thin.
Let the mixture for 15 minutes.
COOK TIME:
Bring frying oil to 350 degrees or hotter.(I use a FryDaddy). Have the batter mix close to the fryer. I use the tail as a handle and dip each shrimp in the batter, let it drip for 2 seconds, and drop it gently into the oil. With the smaller fryer I only fry 3 or 4 at a time.
Remove when golden brown to paper towels to remove any excess oil. They my be kept warm in an oven until all are cooked. They keep well covered and refrigerated for several days. Re-warm in the oven, not microwave.

Recipe Summary

There are dozens of variations on this batter. After years of trial and error I have settled on this version since it makes the batter foamy and the result is a light battered coating. I encourage you to experiment with changing the ratio of flour to corn starch, it will change the crunchy/softness of the final result. Other variations I have encountered are: the addition of soy sauce to the liquid or garlic powder to the dry ingredients. Other possibilities are the use of club soda or beer.